He let us in. The lights were on in the living-room, now that the day had darkened, and my eyes were dazzled for a moment by rays from the glass ornaments which flashed back from every open space. There were angels on the buffet wearing robes striped like peppermint rock; and in an alcove there was a Madonna with a gold face and a gold halo and a blue robe. On a sideboard on a gold stand stood a navy-blue goblet, large enough to hold at least four bottles of wine, with a gold trellis curled around the bowl on which pink roses grew and green ivy. There were mauve storks on the bookshelves and red swans and blue fish. Black girls in scarlet dresses held green candle sconces, and shining down on all this was a chandelier which might have been made out of sugar icing hung with pale-blue, pink, and yellow blossoms.
He let us in. The lights were on in the living-room, now that the day had darkened, and my eyes were dazzled for a moment by rays from the glass ornaments which flashed back from every open space. There were angels on the buffet wearing robes striped like peppermint rock; and in an alcove there was a Madonna with a gold face and a gold halo and a blue robe. On a sideboard on a gold stand stood a navy-blue goblet, large enough to hold at least four bottles of wine, with a gold trellis curled around the bowl on which pink roses grew and green ivy. There were mauve storks on the bookshelves and red swans and blue fish. Black girls in scarlet dresses held green candle sconces, and shining down on all this was a chandelier which might have been made out of sugar icing hung with pale-blue, pink, and yellow blossoms.
Venice once meant a lot to me[15], my aunt said rather unnecessarily.
I dont pretend to be a judge of these things, but I thought the effect exaggerated and not in the best of taste.
Such wonderful craftsmanship, my aunt said. Wordsworth, be a dear and fetch us two whiskies. Augusta feels a teeny bit sad after the sad sad ceremony. She spoke to him as though he were a child or a lover, but that relationship I was reluctant to accept.
Everything go O.K.? Wordsworth asked. No bad medicine?
There was no contretemps[16], my aunt said. Oh gracious, Henry, you havent forgotten your parcel?
No, no, I have it here.
I think perhaps Wordsworth had better put it in the refrigerator.
Quite unnecessary, Aunt Augusta. Ashes dont deteriorate.
No, I suppose not. How silly of me. But let Wordsworth put it in the kitchen just the same. We dont want to be reminded all the time of my poor sister. Now let me show you my room. I have more of my Venice treasures there.
She had indeed. Her dressing-table gleamed with them: mirrors and powder-jars and ash-trays and bowls for safety pins. They brighten the darkest day, she said. There was a very large double-bed as curlicued as the glass. I am especially attached to Venice, she explained, because I began my real career there, and my travels. I have always been very fond of travel. Its a great grief to me that my travels now are curtailed.
Age strikes us all before we know it, I said.
Age? I was not referring to age. I hope I dont look all that decrepit, Henry, but I like having a companion and Wordsworth is very occupied now because hes studying to enter the London School of Economics. This is Wordsworths snuggery, and she opened the door of an adjoining room. It was crowded with glass Disney figures and worse all the grinning mice and cats and hares from inferior American cartoon films, blown with as much care as the chandelier.
From Venice too, my aunt said, clever but not so pretty. I thought them suitable, however, for a mans room.
Does he like them?
He spends very little time there, my aunt said, what with his studies and everything else
I wouldnt like to wake up to them, I said.
He seldom does.
My aunt led me back to the sitting-room, where Wordsworth had laid out three more Venetian glasses with gold rims and a water jug with colours mingled like marble. The bottle of Black Label[17] looked normal and out of place, rather like the only man in a dinner-jacket at a fancy-dress party[18], a comparison which came at once to my mind because I have found myself several times in that uncomfortable situation, since I have a rooted objection to dressing up.
Wordsworth said, The telephone talk all the bloody time while you not here. Ar tell them you don gone to a very smart funeral.
Its so convenient when one can tell the truth, my aunt said. Was there no message?
Oh, poor old Wordsworth not understand one bloody word. Ar say to them you no talk English. They go away double quick[19].
My aunt poured out larger portions of whisky than I am accustomed to.
A little more water please, Aunt Augusta.
I can say now to both of you how relieved I am that everything went without a hitch. I once attended a very important funeral the wife of a famous man of letters[20] who had not been the most faithful of husbands. It was soon after the first great war had ended. I was living in Brighton, and I was very interested at that time in the Fabians[21]. I had learnt about them from your father when I was a girl. I arrived early as a spectator and I was leaning over the Communion rail if you can call it that in a crematorium chapel trying to make out the names on the wreaths. I was the first there, all alone with the flowers and the coffin. Wordsworth must forgive me for telling this story at such length he has heard it before. Let me refresh your glass.
No, no, Aunt Augusta. I have more than enough.
Well, I suppose I was fumbling about a little too much and I must have accidentally touched a button. The coffin began to slide away, the doors opened, I could feel the hot air of the oven and hear the flap of the flames, the coffin went in and the doors closed, and at that very moment in walked the whole grand party, Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Shaw, Mr. H.G. Wells, Miss E. Nesbit (to use her maiden name), Doctor Havelock Ellis, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald[22], and the widower, while the clergyman (nondenominational of course) came through a door on the other side of the rail. Somebody began to play a humanist hymn by Edward Carpenter, Cosmos, O Cosmos, Cosmos shall we call Thee? But there was no coffin.
Whatever did you do, Aunt Augusta?
I buried my face in my handkerchief and simulated grief, but you know I dont think anyone (except, I suppose, the clergyman and he kept dumb about it) noticed that the coffin wasnt there. The widower certainly didnt, but then he hadnt noticed his wife for some years. Doctor Havelock Ellis made a very moving address (or so it seemed to me then: I hadnt finally plumped for Catholicism, though I was on the brink) about the dignity of a funeral service conducted without illusions or rhetoric. He could truthfully have said without a corpse too. Everybody was quite satisfied. You can understand why I was very careful this morning not to fumble.
I looked at my aunt surreptitiously over the whisky. I didnt know what to say. How sad seemed inappropriate. I wondered whether the funeral had ever really taken place, though in the months that followed I was to realize that my aunts stories were always basically true only minor details might sometimes be added to compose a picture. Wordsworth found the right words for me. He said, We must allays go careful careful at a funeral. He added, In Mendeland ma first wife she was Mende they go open deceased persons back an they go take out the spleen. If spleen be too big, then deceased person was a witch an everyone mock the whole family and left the funeral double quick. That happen to ma wifes pa. He dead of malaria, but these ignorant people they don know malaria make the spleen big. So ma wife and her ma they go right away from Mendeland and come to Freetown. They don wan to be mocked by the neighbours.
There must be a great many witches in Mendeland, my aunt said.
Yaas, sure thing there are. Plenty too many.
I said, I really think I must be going now, Aunt Augusta. I cant keep my mind off the mowing-machine. It will be quite rusted in this rain.
Will you miss your mother, Henry?
Oh yes yes, I said. I hadnt really thought about it, so occupied had I been with all the arrangements for the funeral, the interviews with her solicitor, with her bank manager, with an estate agent arranging for the sale of her little house in North London. It is difficult too for a single man to know how to dispose of all the female trappings. Furniture can be auctioned, but what can one do with all the unfashionable underclothes of an old lady, the half-empty pots of old-fashioned cream? I asked my aunt.
I am afraid I didnt share your mothers taste in clothes, or even in cold cream. I would give them to her daily maid on condition she takes everything everything.
It has made me so happy meeting you, Aunt Augusta. You are my only close relative now.
As far as you know, she said. Your father had spells of activity.
My poor stepmother I shall never be able to think of anyone else as my mother.
Better so.[23]
In a new block under construction my father was always very careful about furnishing the specimen flat. I used to think that sometimes he went to sleep in it in the afternoon. I suppose it might have been in one of those I was I checked the word conceived in deference to my aunt.
Better not to speculate, she said.
You will come one day and see my dahlias, wont you? They are in full bloom.
Of course, Henry, now that I have found you again I shant easily let you go. Do you enjoy travel?
Ive never had the opportunity.
With Wordsworth so occupied we might make a little trip or two together.
Gladly, Aunt Augusta. It never occurred to me that she meant farther than the seaside.
I will telephone you, my aunt said.
Wordsworth showed me to the door, and it was only outside, when I passed the Crown and Anchor, that I remembered I had left behind my little package. I wouldnt have remembered at all if the girl in the jodhpurs had not said angrily as I pushed past the open window, Peter can talk about nothing but cricket. All the summer it went on. Nothing but the fucking Ashes[24].
I dont like to hear such adjectives on the lips of an attractive young girl, but her words reminded me sharply that I had left all that remained of my mother in Aunt Augustas kitchen. I went back to the street door. There was a row of bells with a kind of microphone above each of them. I touched the right one and heard Wordsworths voice. Who be there?
I said, Its Henry Pulling.